March
by Hyarrowen
Summary: French and English are separated by more than a few miles of water. But sometimes, bridges can be built. Henry V/French Herald, established relationship, 1989 film 'verse.


March

Disclaimer: Not mine, Shakespeare's and Renaissance Films'. Not making any money out of this.

Notes: You can see the wonderful fifteenth-century painting which inspired this fic at Wikimedia Commons Image Les Tres Riches Heures du duc de Berry mars.jpg (sorry, won't function as a link.) You can see the dragon-Melusine above the right-hand tower, and the stone _montjoie_, or waymarker, at the crossroads.

Slight AU.

Travelling down from Paris to the English duchy of the Aquitaine, they planned to halt for several nights at the Chateau de Lusignan. They rode up through well-tended fields and vineyards towards the white castle on its hill; Henry liked the ordered and productive landscape, and his soldier's eye approved the grazing flocks which kept the outworks clear of any cover.

Montjoy moved up through the line of riders as they approached the chateau, and drew abreast of Henry as they passed the elegant stone waymarker at the crossroads. A _montjoie_. Henry reached out casually and just touched it with his fingers. They exchanged a small, private smile, and then the Herald went ahead to make the formal announcement of their arrival. They rode in past tower after tower, gate after gate, and weary after the long, cold day's journey Henry looked forward to a decent meal, a fire, and the chance to get his hands on the flesh-and-blood Montjoy again.

So he was irritated when, instead of the short, simple meal he would have preferred and when in his own house insisted upon, they were treated to an elaborate banquet and a display of jousting in the Great Hall. The theme was the Chateau's guardian spirit, the faery Melusine who, spied on by her mistrustful husband, a long-ago Lord of Lusignan, had changed herself into a dragon and fled her home forever. Four knights, sworn to uphold her honour, fought a succession of challengers, and Henry looked on in frank disbelief at the sheer extravagance of the spectacle. He'd seen peasants in the fields wearing ragged clothes in the biting March winds, noticed the profusion of vineyards rather than food crops, knew something of the taxes the people had to pay to their lord and the money was spent on this kind of thing?

Montjoy was avoiding his eye. Seated halfway down the hall, he was watching the proceedings with professional interest, conversing with the lesser ladies and the officials of the household with his usual sangfroid. Henry, up on the dais with the nobility, restricted himself to short, polite comments about the jousters' technique. Eventually the entertainment came to a close, with enthusiastic applause from almost all of its audience, and Melusine's honour safely vindicated. Henry, thinking that the outcome could hardly be otherwise considering that half the local nobility claimed descent from the lady, took himself off to his quarters.

After a decent interval Montjoy appeared at his door and they embraced with simple enthusiasm. Montjoy pulled back slightly in his arms and cast an experienced eye over his young soldier-king, twitchy with the annoyance he'd been suppressing all evening, and said, "It gives them something to do."

"I can find plenty of work for them if they're bored."

"But they like the chance to show off in front of their girls, and they can't do that fighting on the border."

Sometimes Henry felt like the complete barbarian king, and this was one of those times because he knew full well that the defence of the realm was more important than the chance to preen and posture in front of an admiring audience. He had, not for the first time, an insight into how he'd won his victories in France.

They'd been through this a time or two since they'd become lovers, the Herald at home as ever in the world of words and Henry talkative as he sometimes was when the fit took him: how, why didn't, if they'd… Montjoy had looked at him in surprise and said, "It wasn't in us. We didn't think like that. We'd thrown away the chance to unite under King Charles. In the end we only had two choices left, you or John of Burgundy."

Henry, who had had repeated offers from both the royalists and the Burgundians, knew that well enough, but was surprised that even Montjoy, loyal as he was to King Charles and to France, could see things so dispassionately.

"So I was preferable to John the Fearless?" A sidelong smile.

"To some of us, yes. To Queen Katherine, certainly." Henry had winced at the thought of her married off to the Duke. "And to me, you always were."

"Always?"

"Yes." And the conversation had ceased for a while, lost in kisses.

But it wasn't until Katherine had died, with the treaty still holding and the new Duke of Burgundy and all France's enemies (all her _other _enemies, as Henry, ever the realist, admitted to himself) held at bay, that they'd finally acted on or even spoken of that "always": which had been an "always" for Henry too, though carefully not thought about.

And now here they were, French Herald and English King, alone in Henry's bedroom on a cold March night in the middle of France. And there was his bed, and his French lover in it, lying propped up on one elbow and regarding his fidgety king with an annoyingly tolerant eye and a half-smile that held promises; and that was surely a matter for celebration.


End file.
